← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, here with JVL and Sarah. We are watching Trump give a presser on the situation in Iran. He was supposed to take a last question. About four questions ago, we just decided to go live. I think we got the gist. I'm gonna offer my opinions in a little bit, but JVL's been watching this steam literally coming out of the ears, and I want to let this man go, so I'm gonna get out of the way and let him cook jvl.
- [00:29]
B
It's fucking insane. It's insane. And I mean, there are things which made me very angry. For instance, Donald Trump saying that there were many people in the military who did not want to do a search and rescue for the downed F15 pilots and that he overruled them. Really? What are their names? Who were these military leaders who did not want to do search and rescue for American pilots because they thought it would be better to have American pilots taken prisoner by the Iranian regime? What are the names of those officers? And have they yet been fired, demoted, or reassigned? If not, why not? Because that would be an insane leadership decision from the military. That is not what we do, is not how the American military has ever operated. We just had the President mere moments ago when asked about, hey, what. What do you think about this idea that the Iranians would want to charge a toll on the Strait? And the President of the United States said, actually, what we're contemplating is charging our own toll because we're the winners, we're the victor. The victors go to spoils. And so is that a real thing? Is that a real proposal that's being floated right now that the United States is going to set up a toll booth on the Strait of Hormuz? Because the answer, of course, is no. That's not a thing. That's real. But the, The President of the United States says it in a. In from the podium. Look right there. You see him from the podium. And the rest of the world just has to, like, go, yeah, well, you know, that's the thing the American President says. And we're just going to pretend it doesn't. Doesn't happen. This is. You know what nobody asked them, Sam? Nobody asked him. Sir, sir, sir, Excuse me, sir. In the beginning of March, on March 5 or March 6, you said that your aim for the war was unconditional surrender from Iran. Is that no longer the case? Because we are living in crazy town. I feel like I'm taking. I'm Magatu here. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
- [02:26]
A
Well, I. I didn't read it. I did read a triad mentioning that as the original objective. Very good triad, I have to say. I don't know if Sarah's read it. I'll just add a few things and then I'm gonna kick it. We were drawn by General Mark Kirtland, so I'm gonna kick it to see our next. Because the stuff you mentioned wasn't even my, like, top three, honestly.
- [02:44]
C
That's right.
- [02:46]
A
There was one point where he said that he was an expert on Iranian culture because he came from New York and knew a lot of Persians. That was an actual statement from him. He also claimed that he has intercepts from the Iranian people saying that they want him to continue to bomb their country. He dismissed the idea that it would be a war crime, basically casually saying he doesn't care. As we're speaking and he is still speaking. He said we may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation. He literally is embracing nation building. And then if you want a contradiction, which there are many here, later in, after saying that the Iranian people do want him to bomb, he then says, do I want to bomb them? No. I don't want to destroy their infrastructure. No. So incredible contradictions. Absolutely no morality and stuff that you said. Jbl. It's like, this doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense.
- [03:41]
B
I'm sorry, Sam. Fact check. Sam, I have to stop you with your fake news.
- [03:45]
A
Okay.
- [03:46]
B
The president, this president who believes in America first, he's against nation building. What he said was that we might help with nation rebuilding.
- [03:54]
A
Oh, totally super different once you destroy.
- [03:57]
B
Totally different.
- [03:58]
D
Yeah.
- [03:59]
A
Yeah. Okay. Sarah, go ahead.
- [04:01]
C
Oh, my gosh, Sam, your top three and JVL's top three are still not in my top three.
- [04:06]
B
Oh, my God.
- [04:07]
C
Of the most insane things. The most insane thing is, first of all, he held this press conference. We were all very concerned that we had a pilot that we thought was behind that had been shot down. Right? And so it is great that they got him back, but they held the press conference and it was this very long sort of intro about. At one point, General Kaine was like, I don't want to talk about these things. Those are operational things. Like, we're not going to talk about that. So he do this whole thing that's meant to be like a victory lap, right? It's meant to make people feel good about the current state of things in the war. Are you guys getting feedback on me?
- [04:47]
A
Yep. But it's okay. Keep finishing. Then we'll get your mic situation dealt with.
- [04:51]
C
Okay. But the main thing is that then they didn't lead with this is we. It took like five questions before we got to we are going to start bombing Iran at 8pm tomorrow night. Like this is the idea that. That wouldn't be mentioned in the upfront remarks. This idea that. Well, right. I mean but this is where we, this is. You want to talk about the most insane thing is that we are sitting here being like well hopefully he tacos but otherwise he's going to obliterate a country that he says he's already obliterated all of their capabilities. But like that's going to happen. Also he did this long thing about how I don't not going to tell you the media are war plans. Why would I do that? And I'm like dude, you sit and on the toilet and tweet out that you are going to bomb them in 48 hours and you're going to bomb this place and this place and this place. I'm sorry you're not keeping the best state secrets. And then also he did this long thing about how every other American president left this and only he right now is taking this on. And I'm like you were president 10 years ago. Like you were also one of those presidents. So my top three is that he basically just said tomorrow night at 8pm we're going to start bombing and all of their infrastructure will be gone by midnight. That seems like a big deal. Maybe lead with that.
- [06:14]
A
Yeah. No. Hey, General Hurling, you watched obviously the intro where he had a number of personnel, CIA director, Secretary of Defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, all speak. It seemed deeply uncomfortable to me. Honestly. He put them in an awkward position but frankly they chose to be in that position. And he kept talking about wet sand and central casting and beepers and pagers and things like that. That didn't make much sense. But as someone who's just been in there in that room having to, you know, take on these tasks, what was going through your head?
- [06:51]
D
Well, yeah, I don't know what you all mentioned as your top three but I'll give you a top two. The top two I have is you had the President, the CIA director and the SEC def all saying the same thing from an uninformed view about what the military had done. If you're going to provide an after action to the American public, put Kaine up there first and let him do the thing.
- [07:18]
A
Right, but.
- [07:19]
D
And, and everybody else who's trying to explain, I mean it was. I wrote Down. I was taking notes on what the President said and all the things. And I just finally wrote down painful. I mean, he had no idea what he was talking about. And he was trying to explain it in his, you know, real estate dealer, you know, verbiage. And he was messing everything up. When the CIA director got up, he didn't want to say too much because he's got a bunch of analysts providing him stuff. But at the end, I was really uncomfortable when he said something like, I can't remember exactly what the quote was and I didn't write it down, was that, hey, the CIA is now really doing real stuff. They're not getting bogged down by politics anymore. I got to tell you, the CIA doesn't get down. Bogged down by politics. None of the intelligence agencies do. And then when Hegseth came up, of course there was the, the knife hands and the, and the, and the approach. And it was just more and more, oh, and the thing that. I'm sorry, this is all in the same category. So this is my one big thing. The, the connection between this, the. The recovery of the pilot and Jesus Christ rising from the dead on Easter morning. I mean, that really was vile. Even if you're an evangelical, that should really cause you to take a step backward. So Cain was. Okay, you know what I'll tell you in terms of listening to General Kane. I've been friends with and have worked for other chairmen of the Joint Chiefs. And I was trying to put the chairman I work for in that same position. And how would they have told the story? And it wouldn't have been like Kane told it. He was the best of the four, but there was some problems with him. Here are the things. Here's the. Hold on, Mark.
- [09:13]
A
I want to play the Pete Hyksef clip that you mentioned because I think it's worth people watching it and then pick up your thoughts on the flip side of that.
- [09:19]
E
Yeah, this was not much of a Runway. This was a farm. Not a Runway, a farm. But it did the trick. But to have a contingency as opposed to having to wait two days. Can you imagine right in the middle. This was central. This was. Right. You would call it central casting if you were doing a movie for location and probably the toughest area of Iran aware.
- [09:44]
A
Okay, that was the wrong clip. We're going to effort to get the right clip. Mark, keep going with your thoughts. We're going to try to find the
- [09:49]
D
raising one relates to this. All three of the civilians with suits on that stage are enamored with what they're seeing in the military because it's the first time all of them have seen these things. If you know the military, if you've been with the military for a while, these are the kinds of things that Special Operations does routinely. The, the throwing, the, the individuals. I don't know who they might be. I'd like to hear names of people saying, no, we shouldn't go after a downed pilot because the military vows to do that. I will never accept defeat. I will, I will always go after my fallen comrades. Those are two code words within every NCO system within the military. That's what we pledge to do, and we pull out all stops to do it. So I, I sure would like to hear the names of anyone who said we shouldn't do that, because that's just,
- [10:48]
A
that's what JBL was saying.
- [10:50]
D
Yeah, it's incredible. I didn't know what he was talking about.
- [10:55]
B
But you see, Mark, Donald Trump invented the phrase no man left behind. Nobody had ever said those words before Donald Trump said them.
- [11:05]
D
Yeah, I heard that. I, I heard that. And that, that will be a surprise to the US military. That goes back about 50 years when they established their codes. You know, the, the last thing I'll say is just. I don't know how to say this better than this. Combat is humbling. It becomes even more humbling when you don't have special operators doing a specific mission. When you're sending literally a large force after two pilots who have been shot down. I mean, this was a special operations mission that had every piece of power, air, ground and sea behind it. When you start getting into doing the things he's considering doing, it's not going to be this easy when you have mass conventional forces attacking a shore or going into a country. But when you have an ego the size of Montana in President Trump thinking that he can use this toy of his and send them wherever he wants to and they will execute cleanly like they did in this mission, but with all the guns a blazing. And what was the one line that I wrote down? Shot by bullets because you bring rifles into play. That was one of his lines early on in the presentation. He's in for a very rude awakening. And the fact that he's also combining that with basically destroying the entire country of Iran because they want to be destroyed, that's what he's hearing their signals saying is just. I don't know. I, I don't know what to say. This, this entire thing this afternoon was extremely troubling.
- [12:49]
B
So I Mark, I just want to put a, a point on what you just said about war being humbling because one of the things that I really just jumped out at me was Pete Heth saying that Iran was impotent because they didn't capture the pilot and how, you know, they have been humiliated because we were able to rescue this guy. This was a rescue mission. Iran shot down two American F15s earlier. They shot down an F35, they shot down a KC135 strata tanker. These are the first air combat losses in America in a generation. And to not have the humility to understand like, you just executed a great mission and you, you proof of concept. We show that SAR work can, can happen even in incredibly hostile territory, which is great. But to come out of that with your, your baseline being a chest thumping. Yeah, we showed them without any recognition of, well, shit, this stuff is all really dangerous, isn't it? Is just stunning to me. And if that is really the type of thinking going into strategic and mission decision making at the highest levels, then like, I don't know, we all ought to get on our knees and start saying rosaries.
- [14:14]
D
Yeah, I think that's right. And you know, not only that, but to use a conference like this to continue to insult members of the press who are just trying to get information that they haven't, haven't received in five weeks to me is unconstitutional, first of all. But secondly, it's just rude and vile and vulgar. And you combine all that with the rude and violent, vulgar true social post he made yesterday. There's, there's something wrong in this government, not just with the individual leading it, but all the individuals who are talking about how great he is every time they're around him and how they, he does everything that no one else has ever considered doing before because he told them to go ahead and do this mission and approved it. That's what every president does. You know, these are tough missions. And as the commander in chief, first of all, you ought to understand what you're doing. And it was obvious for me, he didn't understand a thing when he was describing it. And secondly, it is what they do. They go to him for approval. And here's the point I'd also like to make. What would have happened if it would have failed, if they would not have gotten the pilots out, if several of the aircraft that were overhead would have had problems, if some of the rescue forces would have been killed and it was a complete failure of a mission, this was a successful mission, God bless him for it. It was a great mission, but who would he have been blaming if things had not gone well? He certainly wouldn't have taken on the responsibility. It seems like he only takes it when everything goes perfectly right with his toy soldiers.
- [15:59]
A
I thought about that, actually. I mean, I, My, My expectation would be he was lashed out, both at the generals, of course, but it would have escalated the war for certain,
- [16:11]
D
too.
- [16:11]
A
Yeah. Not that I don't think we're gonna. Who knows what's gonna happen Tuesday at 8, but it does feel like we're in an escalatory moment. I want to talk. I want to play the clip where he rationalizes the idea that you would bomb a country into, in his words, the Stone Age, because he thinks that the Iranian people want him to bomb their country and kill the Iranian people. Let's play the clip. And Sarah, on the other side, you take this.
- [16:39]
C
Said Iranians would be mad if you stop these attacks. But why would they want you to blow up their infrastructure to cut off their power? Wouldn't that be punishing Iranians for the actions of the regime?
- [16:50]
E
They would be willing to say they would be. And it's suffering. They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom. The Iranians have. We've had numerous intercepts. Please keep bombing. Bombs that are dropping near their homes. Please keep bombing.
- [17:10]
A
Bullshit.
- [17:10]
C
Prove it. Yeah, prove it. Because that's just what everybody wants. Are these dropping on their homes?
- [17:16]
D
Are these the same intercepts he's getting from inside of Iran when he said we can't communicate with their people that work a ceasefire deal. So we're getting intercepts from people saying keep bombing, and yet we can't talk to their senior leaders. I don't get that.
- [17:31]
C
I mean, this is what happens when you can't trust the United States government, which is a brand new phenomenon for us. Like, not. Not. And I don't mean completely. Like, obviously that we have been lied to before, we have been misled before, but, like, constant lying. Like, there's no way we won't be talking about little kids running notes back and forth. I don't think that's how we're. Unless he means Witkoff and Jared are running notes back and forth. That's the only. I think that's the only way it was happening. The other thing that, that we haven't talked about yet is how he started shitting on NATO and our allies here, which, you know, one of the things that we were all concerned about going into a Trump second term, one of the top things we want to say is this guy's going to dismantle NATO. He's going to completely obliterate the Western Alliance. And that is happening in real time. Him standing up there. And we don't want your ships. Your ships are garb. I mean, we are going to walk out of this very much. America alone with. What does he think happens when you bomb other countries? Like, we are going to create a new generation of people who want to bomb America back. Like a new generation of terrorists. It is a. And just to do it so casually, without any thought, and then talking about the Strait of Hormuz like, well, you know, it's. He talks about it like they couldn't have anticipated the fact that they were going to close it. Like, this was obviously what was going to happen. And now he's like, oh, well, yeah, well, they could just put some bombs in there. But we also. When we. We're going to take it back and we're going to run the Strait of Hormuz. What. What's the plan for that?
- [19:08]
A
Oh, they're going to charge a toll. You didn't hear it. We get. We get to. We get to check also.
- [19:13]
C
Let's.
- [19:13]
A
Two days ago, he was talking about how the straight would open naturally. What are we talking about? It's all over the place. People should read the Triad. Listen, I gotta run, guys. JVL is going to anchor this bad boy from here on out. I think Edgar may be joining us. I. I'll just leave on this note. I was watching this and I was. I was. I was shaken by it.
- [19:33]
D
It.
- [19:33]
A
It was totally unmoored from reality, and it felt like improv. It felt like improv where he's just throwing against the wall and hoping it sticks. I pray that this is a negotiating tactic, that this is all just one of those Trump bullshit. Let's. We're going to bomb me to smithereens. Oh, we got a deal. But how many more times do we have to go through with this? The cost to this is immense. Burning every international ally, causing the markets to go haywire, scaring the bejesus out of the Iranians and then claiming that they want it. It's nuts. I gotta run. Bye, guys.
- [20:04]
C
Bye, Sam.
- [20:06]
B
All right, I'll drive. So in a lot of ways, we got all the hits. We got. I won every swing state. We got Nobel Prize. How dare they not give me the Nobel prize. I solved 95,000 war wars. I settled them. Declining circulation of the failing New York Times. We got something that I think is new, which is that I would be elected president in Venezuela. Did you guys clock that?
- [20:35]
C
No, but I caught his whole, like, oh, they wanted to give me the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, we had to get. We're maybe gonna bomb Iran in like 30 hours. But. But no, he was going to get his Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, he's ended eight wars.
- [20:51]
B
Yeah.
- [20:52]
C
What is these fake wars? He keeps saying he ended lots of them.
- [20:55]
B
So many of them. So, but the, another. So he then talked about rebuilding. He was talking about, to the winners go the spoils. And Mark, he, he talked about Germany and he was like, can you believe what suckers we were? We rebuilt Germany after the war, which is an amazingly idiotic view. Right? I mean, this is one. You know, one of our greatest successes was that we, we paid to rebuild Germany. And the prize we got was no Third World War. We got a Pax Americana that lasted until roughly 2024. And, and that was really nice. And I guess, Mark, you and I have been on slightly different sides of this question about the, the NATO alliance and how durable are these partnerships. And I want to speak for you, I think your view has roughly been there are lots of logistical integrations and these things don't run on their own, but they do kind of, you know, they, they hang together through hard times. And we've had plenty of hard times before. Domestic industrial defense spending for, for European defense contractors is way up because the Europeans are not just spending more on defense, but they're transitioning away from American defense systems. And that's, I mean, that's like the Titanic turning around. Once those things start, they just, you know, they gather their own momentum. How serious is the, the decline. Impossible. Splintering of NATO like did. Because that's one of the things that jumped out at me from this speech. Again, it's like, yet one more like there was no need for him to go and take shots at NATO allies, but he did it anyway because he wants to.
- [22:47]
D
In terms of the decline, I think it's going to be re. Established under NATO leadership in a very positive way. There are, there are various sectors. When, when I was in Europe, we used to look at the caucuses and old Europe and the Nords and the Baltics. And so we had like, regions as opposed to different country. What I'm seeing now in the last couple years is some of those regions are coming together. Like there's something now called the Nordic Baltic eight where all four of the Nordic countries and the three, five of the Nordic countries and the three Baltic countries are all kind of coming together. To form an alliance within NATO and they're strengthening that alliance. Now. These are all mostly newcomers. The, the Germans, the French, all the old, the so called Rumsfeld old Europe. They are Starting in about 2014, they realized they had to pay more because their economies were so good, but their contributions to security was not. I only think the Ukrainian, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has, has created a new momentum for that. That's what we're seeing. And I think most of the European countries, with the exception of one or two, are saying, hey, we, we got to get our shit together and pull together because America is not going to be the one pulling us together. We've got to do it ourselves until America gets back and gets their stuff together. So I, I think there's a strength in NATO right now. They're trying to figure it out. They're working through it. It's going to be interesting to see Sec. Jen Rudda coming to the White House this week or next week, whenever he's coming to see if he's changed his tune and how he addresses Trump because he has been very sycophantic the last couple of visits. And I think he's going to lay it on the table this time and saying, yeah, you don't boss us around. We're, we're pulling it together ourselves. But I think that's to our disadvantage as the United States. We're going to lose a lot by not being part a lot. We're going to lose a lot more than we gained being a part of this when we continue to step away. That's just my thought, having spent 12 years in Europe.
- [25:00]
B
All right, I want to bring in our colleague Andrew Egger, author of the Morning Shots newsletter. Andrew, you.
- [25:08]
D
Oh, I'm sorry.
- [25:09]
B
Go ahead, Mark.
- [25:09]
D
Now I gotta leave.
- [25:11]
B
Oh, okay. Mark, thanks for being with us. That is General Mark Hertling, bull worker extraordinaire. See him on the command post coming soon, right? Later tonight.
- [25:20]
D
Yeah, this Wednesday with Tom Nichols. And I'm sure we'll be addressing a lot of these same things in different ways as, as the next two days go by. But thanks all for having me. Appreciate it.
- [25:31]
B
Thanks, sir. Andrew, do you have a top two or three from that thing or maybe you have a contrary take? We, you know, we embrace diversity viewpoint here.
- [25:43]
C
You thought it was a great speech, right?
- [25:44]
B
Andrew, if you want to tell me that, actually it was a deeply moving speech, I'm here to listen with an open mind.
- [25:50]
F
Honestly, I'm still reeling from Mark taking off just now. Like my quest to get on one of these livestreams at the same time as him. Fruitless so far, I guess it just keeps continuing. No, I mean, I guess I had, I'm sure you have gone over some of these moments already. So I just. One small moment or one specific thing and then one just kind of general thought. The specific moment which you may or may not have already talked about was the ongoing intensifying threatening of the war crimes. The moment where, you know, he has already said, you know, we're going to go after the power plants, we're going to go after the bridges and it's going to be like nobody's ever seen. And you've got, had a lot of his defenders, you know, online people who have, you know, still not updated their priors from like 2018, 2019 of like, oh, this, you, you, you idiot. You fool. You imbecile. This is just how he negotiates. He just says large sounding concepts to put the fear of God into you. And then Trump gets out there today and he says very explicitly, we have a plan where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o' clock tomorrow night where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. I mean, that's pretty explicit. Every bridge and every building, every, sorry, every bridge and every power plant, all domestic energy creation that, you know, that powers the city or the powers the country will be gone according to this threat from the President. And maybe he's still bluffing, maybe this does not actually represent, you know, the plans that the military is putting together. But to the extent that he is saying it, to the extent that he is putting this out in public as something for Iran to Chuan, it's threatening war crimes. That's just what's happening. And then I guess the more sort of overarching thought is it's just remarkable to see him being placed into these sort of pressure cooker situations where like, there's a lot riding on everything that comes out of the President's mouth these days. Like every, we're like 30 hours away from this supposed Judgment Day Armageddon deadline. Like every moment is kind of precious. And not only is he up there like playing the hits, talking about how much he appreciated when Kim Jong Un called Joe Biden mentally retarded. I think I have that right. Do I have that right? Like, like that, you know, my buddy, my buddy, this dictator halfway around the world that has very little to do with this direct conflict. Here's, here's something fun. You'll Appreciate this that he said about, you know, my predecessor, Joe Biden, like the idea that he is, he is spending his time doing this, this sort of like shtick campaign trail rally nonsense or talking about how, you know, Nicolas Maduro was sending all of his lunatic asylum patients over the southern border. Like, it's always crazy. It was crazy to just to see those sorts of things in isolation on the campaign trail. It is a million times crazier to see it again. This own guy's sort of self imposed, put up or shut up. The world is gonna go one of two very different ways tomorrow. Ultimatum moments and the fact that Steve Witkoff, the top negotiator for all of this stuff. I did not see him on camera, but Trump acknowledged him. He's like, oh, and Steve's here. Steve is having a great time sitting through all of this. I guess it's like a fun way for the top guy we have negotiating this stuff to spend his Monday afternoon again, 30 hours before this deadline. I'm sure he has nothing else that he could be working on right now, but, but yeah, I don't know. I was. Those were just kind of my, my basic thoughts.
- [29:07]
C
You know, one of the things we heard a lot, or I heard a lot from voters going into 2024, and I've always heard it about Trump is like, well, he's a crazy person and he's unpredictable and so that's what's going to make, you know, him such a good negotiator in these things. And I'm like, this is what it looks like to have an insane person be at the helm when you're, we're already in the middle of a war. What he's talking about is a dramatic escalation of war, mass casualties, and he's an explicit war crimes. In fact, he was sort of asked that at one point, like, why are you, are you concerned that maybe what you're outlining here are war crimes? He was also asked no.
- [29:49]
B
He said no.
- [29:50]
C
Are you? Yeah, I know he said no. He has this. Are you concerned, Some people are concerned about your mental faculties. That came up because when he's talking, during his introduction, when he's answering questions, he sounds like a crazy person. Like, this is. And whatever the speech was a week ago that we all watched couldn't be done. Well, he said, he kept calling everybody genius. He kept saying central casting. He didn't say it once, he said it 15 times. It's like, you know, he talked about
- [30:15]
F
a location from central casting where it was shot down. Central Casting, like, I mean, and there wasn't even a person.
- [30:23]
C
And the wet.
- [30:24]
B
Central casting was an actual department once upon a time. And during the studio system in the 40s where they had actors waiting and you would go to central. I need a guy who looks like that. It was never used for. I'm sorry, I'm treating this as if words have meaning.
- [30:38]
C
Yeah, but this is, this is your Mad Men theory right now. Your madman theory of, of running things is that he. And what do you make of this? So, so we, we haven't really gotten into this and I know it's because none of us have a real answer because we don't know what Trump's going to do, but are we going to start at 8pm tomorrow? So the Iranians have. Sounds like they. It's not like Steve Witkoff is there right now talking to them. He was at this presser. I mean, maybe he's waiting for the next kid to run him a note or whatever it is that in terms of how they're talking. But like, what is going to happen? Are we going to, are we going to obliterate Iran tomorrow evening? We're going to take out all their infrastructure.
- [31:16]
B
I mean, stay tuned, right? I mean, this is literally all just like pro wrestling flying by the seat of your pain. You know, he's got every, every. He's going to make a very strong decision. And you know, a lot of people, most of you are going to be very pleased with the decision he makes because he's making it very strongly. Right? This is how he does everything. It's all seat of the pants, shucking and jiving and it's. I want to ask a question that I know the answer to, Sarah, but I need to ask it anyway. The President did begin by calling this a war. A war is a word which has a legal meaning in the federal legal system and in the way in which the Constitution works and all that. Is it possible that the legislature of this fine constitutional republic of ours might do something since the President himself says it's a war? Or is that like the unconditional surrender thing and the tolls on the sword moves? It's like we just don't do that anymore and I'm silly for pretending. And I know what the. You can go ahead and hit me because I know what the answer is.
- [32:35]
C
Well, I've got two things, okay? One is this idea about how, how do you take his words seriously? Right? So. So if, if not just if we're at war, but if we as Americans basically, and The. The American market, right. Basically build in the idea that this guy is lying to us. How does Iran deal with Trump in that? Like, if they are just like, this is a guy who lies. This is a guy who will give us an ex who will just extend this for his own reasons. He's got too much internal pressure there at home. Does any of it matter? Like, that is the part that. That feeling of imposed nihilism. I don't feel nihilism. I feel like it is being imposed on me because these words have no meaning. The second thing I'll say is, in a sane world, that was such a batshit crazy thing he just did. Same with last week. Why aren't the Democrats holding a. Are they holding a press conference right now? I don't have the TV on, so I don't know. Are they holding a press conference right now? To say what you just heard was madness, that we have no game plan and we are just threatening this level of an attack without any discussion with Congress? Are they outraged to be being ignored
- [33:48]
B
and start streaming live? If you're a Democrat and you're back in your district, just start talking to the people in your district saying, this is crazy. Constitution says the president can't just, you know, launch a war without congressional authorization. The guy just said it's a war. I don't know.
- [34:03]
F
Can I say, I think this. This, to me, is a lot like the war crimes thing in terms of Trump just sort of, like, sawing off every limb that a person could, like, presumably try to clamber up onto and find some way to torture an argument into the shape that it's, like, defensible for this. Right? I mean, like, if it's not, there are a lot of people who, again, who are saying, like, all this stuff we're doing so far, all this stuff he's threatening, that's not war crimes. That does not get up to the point of war crimes. And then here's Trump saying, no, we're going to bomb everything, everything's going to be destroyed. There's no further point beyond which a war crime could theoretically exist. So obviously, the thing that he's threatening is, even if it's only a threat, even if it's only an empty threat, obviously the thing that he is threatening is war crimes. And it's the same with war. I mean, like, the, the way that these defenders have framed all of this is, oh, come on, this is just a limit, limited military operation. It's this. I mean, they've. They've deliberately, like, focused on the smallness of it all and the limitation of it all, as though wars can't be short and small, for one thing. But, but focusing on all of that with sort of like, the, the implicit suggestion that, like, a war would be bigger, a war would be more extensive, a war would implicate more. But again, here's Donald Trump saying, we're going to push the pedal down as far as it goes. And by the way, they've been saying this basically every day. Every, every single day. Pete Hegseth gets up there and he says, and they haven't seen anything yet. Like, today's strikes are going to be the most extensive that we've seen so far in this conflict. And again and again and again, it just grows larger and larger and larger. But the question is not, like, can anybody, from the point of view of Congress, the question is not can anybody construct an actual reasonable argument about this. It's just a question of will they actually do anything? Because, like, in order to actually put any meat on the idea that obviously this conflict is a war in everything but law, they would need to sit down and actually, like, take a vote. And of course that's not gonna happen. So, like, the whole conversation of, like, is this a war or isn't it a war is like almost a semantic game that just reveals the emptiness at, at, at the heart of talking about this sort of thing at all in an environment where the concepts don't actually have any teeth of their own, because the people, the decision makers have no Republicans in Congress can do not feel compelled by any of the laws on the books to behave in a way that would get them crosswise of Donald Trump. And so if, if, you know, there seems to be this constitutional demand for them to do so or for them to hold Trump to account for him not doing so. And functionally, those, those demands and those
- [36:30]
B
things don't exist at all. All right, I got a pair of questions from the, from the chat that I think are worth asking in conjunction. The first from Jody Money 1186. Is it possible Trump is going full crazy in his threats because he's about to fold and he'd rather claim, hey, only my tough talk could have gotten a deal rather than cop to, well, we had to get out wherever we could, Sarah.
- [36:53]
C
Totally. Yeah, that sounds, that sounds completely plausible to me. Although, yeah, I mean, because tomorrow night, it seems unlikely that we are going to bomb all of Iran's infrastructure tomorrow night. Like, that just, that is difficult to contemplate that that is what we would be doing. And so he's got to be looking for some way out what that is. I mean, my guess is he probably, it's just like it's infrastructure week. Oh no. We heard from the Iranians, so to speak, they sent us, they sent us a note.
- [37:27]
B
Now, even though infrastructure week, even though
- [37:30]
C
they have no communications capabilities, as I laid out, they sent us a note via a child that they are, we are still negotiating. And so when they get another two week extension. Yeah, that seems as likely as anything else, Andrew.
- [37:44]
B
I mean, that is one possible outcome, right?
- [37:46]
F
I, I do think it is wildly unlikely that we will actually see anything that like, actually resembles the scale of the threat that Trump laid out today. I think, I think, you know, even yet another dramatic escalation in the bombing and stuff would not amount to what he's talking about right now. But that said, we could see, I mean, in actual fact, not in the mind of Trump, but in actual fact, there are a lot of war crimes along the axis in between what we're doing right now and that threat. I mean, that threat is just like, you know, like the, the, the, the heap of war crimes to end all heaps of war crimes. But like the fact that we might not get to that does not necessarily mean there are not worse escalations that we could still see here in between.
- [38:27]
B
All right, so here's, here's my, my split the baby on this. It is also possible that he will launch a series of infrastructure attacks which are not war crimes or which are maybe war crimes, but who knows? But they, they'll be like 10% of what he promised. And then afterwards he'll say, see, I did it. Look, I did it, I did it all. Which is kind of what he did with tariffs, right? I mean, only about 20. I love this stat. Bloomberg did a big, like, they went through every single Trump tweet and announcement of a tariff to see how many like, actually followed through. And it was like one in five. So the vast majority of Trump's like, oh, I'm doing a tariff, never actually materialized. And so it could be like that. And so he could get the, the best of all worlds. He doesn't actually have to do war crimes. And all of his base who like the idea of war crimes, which there's a thing, I'm sorry, there are some percentage of America out there wants the war crimes. Maybe it's not a big percentage, but I'm sure It's more than 2%. And they'll get to feel like they got their big daddy moment.
- [39:33]
C
But but that just, that just takes us to a new moment. Like if he does that and that's
- [39:39]
B
all he ever does, is take us to a new moment.
- [39:41]
C
Sure, but, but that doesn't get us out of that, doesn't get us out of this, then we are still in a place where we are sitting between new escalation and Trump trying to figure out a way out.
- [39:56]
F
I think Trump's problem here is that the, his ordinary like move of just sort of at some point getting tired and taking the ball and going home is not really available to him because the preexisting status quo of like an open strait of Hormuz and like a beaten down Iranian regime is not on the table. Iran has maintained its ability to exert economic control over the straits. So like the economic pain is there no matter what. Unless Trump makes Iran want to take it off for some reason. And that's the trap that he's in because he, all he can seem to conceptualize is that there must be some pain point at which, you know, it gets big enough that Iran is like, okay, fine, fine, fine, you win, you win, you win, we'll do whatever you want, we'll reopen the strait and then he can take the ball and go home. But until that happens, he sunk. I mean, he's in real trouble. The economic devastation of the strait remaining the way it is right now on sort of a long term basis, to say nothing of permanently, is the end of all political prospects for Republicans until everybody who touch to this, until this whole White House is completely gone and probably longer. And so he really the only short term plan other than becoming a supplicant to Iran and basically saying, look, what do you want? We'll give it to you. And Iran knows that they have a lot of pressure there and so their demands are enormous. But the only other thing on the table for him is to say, well, look, maybe that pain point exists and we'll just keep pushing the pedal down farther and farther and farther and farther and farther until hopefully we find it. But it might not exist. That's the other problem. I mean, like, he might just be like searching for a point of military devastation that, that there is no actual solution for, for him on the other side. But that, but, but you never know, right? I mean, it's impossible for him to tell. He's like, well, maybe we just didn't bomb enough things yet. Maybe we just didn't bomb enough things yet. Maybe we just didn't bomb enough things yet. Until you get to essentially this situation. That he described in the briefing room today.
- [41:51]
C
We do have oil at oil at 12, 112 bucks right now.
- [41:57]
B
What would Billy Bob Thornton say about that?
- [42:00]
C
I think he would say that is not the market, though, man. I just, I do not understand the way that our stock market has become entirely untethered to what is happening in a normal world. The fact that Trump keeps telling them he's going to get out of this, that it's, it's ramping down. And somebody asked him this, one of the questions, said, you keep telling us that you're ramping down and it's going to be over soon and tomorrow you're talking about bombing all their infrastructure, which is it? And he was just like, I don't
- [42:27]
B
know, could be either. Yeah. He said it's really up to them. It's very critical time. Very critical time. So, Sarah, I'm going to let you go in a minute, but I do have a question for you. This is, this is from, from the chat again. This is from William Burnett, 9844. Has anyone reminded our military leaders that they need, must not obey illegal orders? Our friends over at Just Security had a fantastic piece about war crimes and the nature of illegal orders and the consequences from them. And what this piece reminded people of was that many people will certainly be given pardons from the, the Trump White House at some point. But if you're in the military and you are instructed to do a war crime, you do have an obligation not to do it and you do create criminal exposure for yourself if you choose to go along with these things at a later date if you don't get your get out of jail free card. So I am of the opinion this is like super important to impose consequences for like future. And it's like icky because it's, you feel bad for anybody. You know, if you're some guy just in the line, you didn't sign up for this. Right. You, you signed up to serve your country. You didn't want to be put into this position. It's a terrible position, but it's like the Mike Pence position and you have to do the right thing. And if, if you don't do the right thing, the future of the republic actually depends on using the full extent of the law to prosecute you at a later date.
- [44:03]
C
Yeah, I mean, you know, is that
- [44:05]
B
good JVL or bad jvl?
- [44:07]
C
That's mid jvl. I think Abraham Lincoln had a, had a line on this about why should I harm the hair on the head of the young person and not hold accountable the people who sent him there. And I, I think I've always taken that.
- [44:24]
B
I have. I can answer that question.
- [44:28]
C
What is. Is it a question? I just thought it was an Abraham Lincoln quotation.
- [44:32]
B
No, but Abraham Lincoln was asking the question. I'm saying I could answer that for honestly, if he needs me to. I can tell.
- [44:39]
C
You know, I've always been for accountability for everybody. I mean, but, but I do think January six is a good example of where we held the, not the wrong people accountable like we did. We needed to hold the January six insurrectionists accountable, and Trump obviously got to pardoning them, and now they're all out there committing sex crimes. But it would have been a lot better if we had prosecuted quickly, if Merrick Garland and everybody else had prosecuted the people at the top before Trump, that would have done a lot more good, I think, over the long term to create disincentives than what we are dealing with right now.
- [45:15]
B
But that's not the question. The question isn't should you do the lower ones and not do the top ones? The question is you should do everybody. But if you can't do the top ones because they get covered by a pardon, do you let the people lower on the food chain go or not? I mean, I would maintain that, like,
- [45:32]
C
you have to get. Those are the. You have to give me the circumstances. Like, is it. Are you talking about the people that the military says. And you know, when we saw a bunch of Democrats not that long ago, Alyssa Slotkin, a bunch of them said, you do not have to obey illegal orders. They just reminded people of that. And you know, what the Trump administration
- [45:52]
B
did, lost their minds.
- [45:54]
C
They tried to throw them in jail for it. They tried to throw them in jail for it. And so look, I hope people follow of good conscience, make good decisions here. But I, the idea of saying, oh, we're going to throw the people in jail who are following these orders, I don't know. I don't know that that's the, that's the best way to create a deterrent. I think the best way to create a deterrent is among senior people who are the ones sending them and doing this.
- [46:26]
B
I want to do it for all of them. And to be very clear, I'm not saying throw them in jail. I'm saying pursue free full legal accountability to the provideable extent of the law. Maybe that means jail, maybe it doesn't. I don't know. I don't know what the laws are.
- [46:40]
C
Why don't you Ask Andrew this.
- [46:41]
B
We're gonna. We're gonna do that. So, Sarah, I'll let you go.
- [46:44]
C
You didn't ask Andrew. You're not gonna ask?
- [46:46]
B
No, because Andrew and I are gonna have a long conversation that would totally uninterest you. We're gonna do some Jesus talk.
- [46:51]
C
Great.
- [46:52]
B
We're gonna have something to do. Sarah. See you later, Andrew. So I. I wanted to get into the God is good discussion with you live because. On YouTube, because that is the place to hash out theology. This is if the two greatest places to do theological investigation are YouTube and Twitter. I think if the last 10 years have shown us anything that it's. It's that. So I'm hoping you can talk me off of a ledge here, because when all of these people at this press conference started doing God is good, God is good because the rescue op worked out. I almost lost my mind because of my faith tradition. I think it's my faith tradition. I am more of a. I come from the Catholic faith tradition, which is much less God is good and more thy will be done. Like, boy, if it's possible for this cup to pass me, let it pass. But if it's your will that I drink from it, I'll drink from it. Not. You know, the evidence of God is not that the thing you want to happen happens. That is not evidence. God is not good because your sports team wins the game. You want it to win. God is not good because the rescue mission succeeds any more than God is stops being good because your plane is shot down or stops being good because 13 people on the base are murdered and killed by an Iranian missile. Right? Good is good. The problem of evil persists in the world. And you, you don't get to go, yes, God is good when things turn out the way you want them to be. And so I found it to be theologically offensive and like the worst form of Christian nationalism. And it just set my teeth on edge, which. But you come from a different faith tradition. And so I was wondering if maybe you could talk me off of this ledge and explain why. Actually, it's totally okay. It's harmless. Don't worry. This isn't Christian nationalism. This is just a different non Catholic view of Christianity.
- [49:04]
F
Yeah, I have gotten very comfortable with, you know, coming on in this weird parasocial situation and talking to 100 million people at once about, you know, political analysis and stuff. And the fact that you have now blasted me into this. I'm like, I'm like in panic, full panic mode, because this is not My bailiwick at all. I think, I think that this or Hassan piker.
- [49:23]
B
Andrew, think about what you want to discuss.
- [49:25]
F
No, I mean, the way that you were talking about the sort of like the thy will be done element of thing, I don't see that as in contrast with, with the God is good element of it all at all. I mean, those are. God, God is good. But God, God is good does not necessarily mean God is on your team unless you are yourself, God totally convinced that you are sort of an agent of.
- [49:46]
B
I believe Trump's sign will like, Trump believes he is. I mean, like, we literally asked this in the, in the press conference. One of the reporters said, do you think that God is on your side? And he said, yes.
- [49:56]
F
Yeah. And the way that it is sort of like selectively deployed, I mean, it gets, it gets you into all kinds of sort of really, really grotesque places. I mean, like, I think back to when, when he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania. Right. And the way that he and his apparatus sort of talked that up as like, well, this is how you can tell that, that, that, that he really does have the mandate of heaven. Because, because a guy got up on a roof and took a shot that should have hit him, but it just barely missed. And, and isn't that so wonderful? And isn't that so great? And it's like, well, I, I'm glad he didn't die. I'm very glad that he, that he survived that. I mean, that's great. I mean, maybe we can praise God for that. But the other guy didn't survive. You know, this other guy did get hit by the bullet. Why didn't, why didn't he get wafted it like, get, get sort of, it pushed slightly aside? Was he sort of less favored under, under sort of the divine mandate of all the. And you, you mean, you, you really do get yourself into trouble, like, theologically anti Christian. Say that again.
- [50:54]
B
It's anti Christian. So I, I'm thinking about again. So there's one of the, one of the Jesus parables. You know, we, we Catholics try not to touch the Bible too much. We like to hold the Bible at arm's length from us, so I couldn't tell you which one it's in, but it's the blind man and the, you know, the apostles say, you know, whose fault is it that he's blind? Is it his sin or the sins of his parents? And Jesus is neither. You know, this is, he's blind because. So the glories of God could be accomplished through him or through me with him, which is like the perfect. Like, this is how you deal with the problem of evil in Christianity. God doesn't want the evil things that happen in the world. He permits them because they're all part of a larger plan. And his ways are so far above your ways that you can't even perceive them, et cetera, et cetera. This sort of like, yeah, that's right, he survived. The pilot survived because it was God's will to show you. That's an inversion of that. That is like, oh, so if the pilot hadn't survived, that would have been God showing that he didn't want him. Right. Like, it just takes away the whole idea of, you know, the world existing according to God's plan and not ours. And our best effort is to muddle through and try to divine what God's plan is for us and do his will. Yeah, it's really, it just strikes me as dangerous. And I don't know, we know we,
- [52:18]
F
we don't even have to necessarily get this cerebral about it. I mean, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that what Trump means when he talks about Christianity and God's will is, is God blessing the presidency of Donald Trump, doing right by Donald Trump, you know, prosperity. God is not a person. Donald Trump does not have a faith tradition. Right. Donald Trump has surrounded himself with sort of like these, these huckster, televangelist types who, by the way, I've written about this, obviously these people don't care all that much about Donald Trump's soul. They're not, they're not really like tapping him on the shoulder like, you know, Mr. President, you might want to actually spare some thought to sort of getting right with your maker in these different ways. They're just happy that he's sort of like delivering in these policy realms. But, But I mean, 100%, all it is, is, is, is sort of a permission structure for he himself to set himself up as having the mandate of hell, of heaven in a way that is self idolatrous. I mean like, it is a way that, that has this sort of like mirror image bank shot effect where he is, he is talking about God a lot, but really all he is doing is revealing the ways in which he is God in his own sort of personal cosmology. I mean, he sort of represents the world spirit, the divine mandate in these, in these different ways. And yeah, I mean, like, obviously I'm confessional Lutheran and you know, we have a sort of different relationship to scripture arguably than, I don't know I find myself. You say that stuff about Catholicism and I'm like, wanting to defend, like, the Catholics in my life against your sort of glib. You guys like the Bible? Fine. Jbl, come on.
- [53:48]
B
Like it.
- [53:48]
A
Fine.
- [53:49]
B
We don't even like having our Mass and our services in languages that we understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But don't even do it in English, please.
- [53:56]
D
I'm sorry.
- [53:56]
B
We would like it to be in an ancient language so that we only barely understand what's happening around.
- [54:01]
F
Great. It's very elevated. But, but, but, but, I mean, like, this is, this is the point. Like, the reason why in many Christian faith traditions, the reason why it is so important to sort of return to the Scripture. Return to the scripture. Return to the scripture is because it's so easy to convince yourself according to just sort of like an airy fairy, like anything goes, sort of like vague spiritualism. It's so easy to convince yourself that you have the mandate of heaven and you're on the side of the angels and that the people who you dislike, for whatever reasons you dislike them, they're on the side of the demons. And that's what that is. What sort of all of the faith type stuff amounts to in the President and his people's sort of cosmology is. It's just we are blessed and they are cursed. Anything we might want to do to or about them is, is, you know, completely on the side of God. And that is 100% not in keeping with the way that, that the Bible talks about any of this stuff where, you know, the. I mean, just. Do you, do you think Donald Trump has ever given a second of thought to, like, attend to the log in your own eye, you know, before you start worrying about the speck in other people's. Like, just basic stuff like that, about sort of humility and knowledge of your own brokenness and knowledge of your own sin and your own failings before you start, like, piling it up on other people. It's just, I mean, it. He's been in the public eye for a long time, and I've never seen it.
- [55:19]
B
Pop quiz, Andrew, what church did he go to Easter services at?
- [55:23]
F
He didn't go. Yeah, I mean, he didn't attend.
- [55:25]
B
Instead, he went and scouted the location for the monumental art that he wants to build to himself. I just don't know what better possible allegory there is for the, you know, Trump is to Christianity as X is to Y, but there we are. All right, guys, that was a hell of a journey. We went from Donald Trump celebrating the rescue of two American pilots, which is good. We're very happy about that. To Donald Trump saying that his military leadership is full of people who did not want to rescue those pilots, which is preposterous and calumny and an insult to the militaries leaders. I wonder if any of them clock that to a good old fashioned Lutheran Catholic conversation about the big jc. Happy triduin, my friends. All right, everybody else, hit like hit. Subscribe, follow the channel. We'll be back soon. Good luck, America.